Establish a Process for Making Referrals

Lana Chandler
February 5, 2008 | COMMENTS

Front-line employees have the most opportunities to identify clients who need your services,” points out Anthony Robinson, CEO of Questa Corporation in Bellevue, Washington. “If tellers and CSRs are just order-takers, there is a high probability that some of the client's financial needs will go unmet.”

When a client later realize that a need has been unmet for some time, there is the possibility of losing that client. A competitor may have helped the client meet that need or the client is upset that your institution did not alert them to the possibility of fulfilling the need earlier.

Example: A client has been paying high fees on a checking account. Later the client learns that because of the balances he has maintained, a lower fee or no fee account was available but no one told him about it. Once the client learns this, the service your institution has been providing no longer merits any loyalty.

On the other hand, if a client's financial needs have been identified and met through the attention of the employees the client see most often (tellers or CSRs), then even as the client's financial circumstances change there is no opportunity for a competitor to fulfill a need. The client will feel successfully served by your institution.

Five “GREAT” Referral Steps

An effective referral conversation, says Robinson, consists of these five components:

1. (G) Get clients talking. Know how to start conversations about non-financial topics.

2. (R) Recognize triggers. Know how to:

• Identify potential unmet financial needs from what clients do, say, have, and don't have
• Turn the conversation toward a financial topic by making an observation about something you see on the CIS screen for relationship triggers and then ask a clarifying question, or ask a clarifying question about a transaction or life-event trigger
• Identify a core need from how the client answers the clarifying question
• Ask a core benefit question to determine a client's interest in getting the core need satisfied

3. (E) Elicit positive responses. Know what to say to keep the conversation going if the client objects to what you suggest.

4. (A) Ask to introduce. Know how to obtain the client's permission to introduce the client to a sales associate who can help fulfill the identified need. Referrals can be immediate or follow-up. Employees need to know the components of each type of referral.

5. (T) The secret ingredient—perseverance. Know how to keep on track when things get tough.

Coach for Success

Coaching is converting knowledge into skills. “Without coaching, the skills of recognizing triggers and engaging clients in conversation with clarifying and core benefit questions will not become the natural way employees serve clients,” says Robinson. While employees can be trained in the referral components, training alone doesn't convert these components into behavior. That can only occur through practice.

“With practice, CSRs and tellers will make the skills of referring part of their natural conversation with clients. As a result, they will develop referrals that help clients get their financial needs met in the same time that other employees are merely being courteous,” says Robinson.

Coaches can encourage skill practice through role plays and warm-up drills. Here's a recap of each:

Role plays vary based on the type of trigger being practiced. For transaction and life-event triggers, describe a scenario at the employee's work area. Outline what the employee knows when the transaction starts, and the background the client knows to play a convincing role.

“The role play instructions specify how the role play starts—who does what first—and provides any props that may be needed,” Robinson says. “The role play is ideally best performed in threesomes, with the third person being both an observer and a coach.” This person should have a checklist of the actions that comprise a successful service interaction. If a threesome is not available, the person playing the client is also the observer/coach. Since the role play is practice, the person playing the CSR/teller can use any support material needed as well as enlist assistance from the observer/coach.

Role plays can be the subject of a staff meeting. Or a more practical approach is to do a quick role play at the start of an employee's shift. This takes about five minutes. The key is that role plays are done every day, so that using the skills becomes natural.

Warm-up drills are quick coaching sessions that occur at the start of each employee's shift. They may be full role plays (practicing a complete transaction) or they may be focused on only part of a transaction.

Example: The drill may focus only on “conversation starters” or the answer to an objection. It should be short and designed to make a skill something that occurs automatically. Typical topics for warm-up drills are conversation starters, recognition of triggers, answering objections, clarifying questions, and core benefit questions.

Emphasize Service

Does your staff understand the link between referrals and service? As the leader, it's crucial that you discuss “order-taking” vs. “successful service.” Employees need to understand that recognizing financial needs and referring appropriately can enhance client relationships and build loyalty. Robinson offers these tips:

• Ask employees to share their experiences as customers. Most people can recognize the short-term and long-term consequences for the store and the customer when they're the customer doing the shopping.
• Use this discussion as a jump-off point to discuss if the distinction between “order-taking” and “successful service” applies to banking, also. It does!
• Discuss how the core needs of clients may be unmet if employees are just “order takers.”
• Explain that referrals are necessary to successfully serve clients and that referrals are how employees can help meet the client's core needs.

This story appeared in Lana Chandler's Branch Manager's Letter at www.branchmanagersletter.com and is reprinted with permission.